Against All Odds

She fell quiet and just looked at me for a while. Maybe she hoped I'd volunteer more information. When I didn't, she continued.

"As you're obviously not going to do it, I just have to ask you. Would you go out and have dinner with me tonight?"

"We regularly eat out together. Why make such a fuss about it? You could just have asked."

She shook her head and it became obvious that I had missed something.

"Because tonight, I'm taking you to a nice restaurant with candles, tablecloth, and soft music instead of the pub for a burger and fries."

Dating

I knew that I wouldn't be able to avoid the discussion about my past for much longer. Obviously, Betta was willing to take our relationship to the next level and I understood that we couldn't move forward if she didn't know my past. Why had I waited to the very last moment to talk to her about it?

The answer was simple. I was scared. Ten years ago, I was badly burnt by the behaviour of the people closest to me. For ten years, I had done everything I could think of to avoid a close relationship with anyone. Now, using a Trojan horse in the form of two Dobermans, Betta had sneaked past my defences, come close to me, become important to me, and I was scared of being hurt again.

My determination held up until we had finished the main course. During the entire dinner, she had been asking gently probing questions about my life before I moved here. After successfully redirecting the discussion a few times, I finally gave in and told her the big corner points of my past before I came here. I didn't go deep into my childhood, just mentioning how Andrew had always been preferred to me, but told her how I found my brother fucking my girlfriend in our parents' house with their full knowledge and that I hadn't had any contact with any of them ever since.

"But that's horrible! They're your family! At the very least, you have to let them know that you're ok."

Immediately, I threw up the wall that had defended me over the last ten years. It must have shown on the outside as I could see in her eyes that she was a little scared of me when I spoke.

"You must promise that you will not make any kind of attempt to contact any of them. Our relationship would not survive that. I don't care how they are doing and I don't want them to know about me. Their betrayal was just the straw that broke the camel's back."

"I don't understand that. Yes, what your brother did was horrible and that your parents covered for him was vicious, but I'm sure they nevertheless love you. Your childhood can't have been that bad. I'm sure this is your memory playing tricks on you. Can't you imagine how much they must hurt not knowing how their child is doing?"

For a few moments, I tried to stem against the flood but it was futile. I could physically feel how all those old feelings and resentments pushed up from where I had buried them.

"My brother's birthday is on the 5th of September, mine is on the 11th. As my parents couldn't be bothered to throw two parties within a week, my birthday was always celebrated early, kind of as an appendix on his.

There were always two cakes. One which Mum had baked herself, and beautifully decorated with Andrews name and the right number of candles on it and one which she had bought in a store with one candle for me.

There was always a birthday party with his friends. I was never allowed to invite any of the few kids that might have come to mine as it wasn't really my birthday after all, and the bigger boys shouldn't be disturbed by small children.

When he had his twelfth birthday, he got a new bike. Two years later, on my twelfth birthday, I got the very same bike but now the front wheel was buckled, the back wheel was flat, and the chain and the gears were rusty as he had dropped it into a ditch and left it there for a week before I was sent to collect it, two days before I got it. I considered myself lucky to be given a puncture repair kit and a bottle of oil to 'fix it up'.

After his growth spurt before his fourteenth birthday, he got all his clothes replaced. When I turned fourteen, I got the clothes he had dismissed two years earlier, including underwear and socks. It didn't matter that they didn't fit me at all.

For his sixteenth birthday, he was allowed to go on a sports holiday in the Mediterranean for two weeks. For the same birthday, I got a chemistry set for ten-year-olds.

On his eighteenth birthday, he got a brand- new car and all his driving lessons paid. On my eighteenth birthday, I got the bike he had received for his fourteenth."

She tried to reach for my hand to hold it but I pulled it away. I wasn't in the mood for pity or physical contact.

"When Andrew was nineteen, he got one of his girlfriends pregnant, so our parents bought him a house. They gave him the equity and paid the interest on the mortgage. I was still studying when I was told to start and pay rent if I wanted to keep living at home. Coincidentally, my rent and the alimony my parents paid to Andrew were about the same.

Finding out that that son of a bitch holy fucking Andrew and my first serious girlfriend had hooked up with not only the knowledge but also the support of my parents was just the culmination of a life of abasement."

I hadn't meant to take it all out on Betta, but once I had started there was no stopping me. Now I was in such an angry state that I just got up. Before she had time to react, I had turned around and stormed towards the exit. I heard her call my name but I had to get away or I would probably start saying things I could come to regret.

As soon as I had left the restaurant, I turned to the right and rushed into the alley next to the building. I needed time alone to think.

It took more than just a little while for my anger to subside and I didn't slow my brisk pace down to a more reasonable speed before then. What exactly had just happened? I wasn't angry with Betta. She hadn't done anything wrong and I had known that the topic would come up sooner rather than later. During my rumination, I couldn't deny that my reaction was scarily similar to Betta's after I had told her she should think about seeing a psychologist. Ben had said something along these lines as well.

At some point, I realised I had left all my personal effects at the restaurant. I was without my wallet, phone, or car keys and didn't even really know where I was. I wasn't worried about myself but it would take me a while to get home without money to pay for transportation but I was fit enough.

Three hours later, I walked up the drive towards my house. I saw the car, and was relieved to have my hope confirmed that Betta had been able to get home safely. I also recognised her silhouette behind the living room curtain. She even beat Blaze and Xena to the door when I entered.

"George! Thank god!" was all she said as she threw her arms around me.

I had also thought about the moment I walked through the door and hadn't been sure what I had to expect. Understanding, compassion, and relief had not made the top of the list, but I wasn't totally surprised by that reaction. Still, I had expected her to be scolding me for deserting her.

"I'm sorry I blew up and ran out on you. It wasn't your fault. Did you get home ok?"

Her only reply was to hug me harder. By now, our two dogs had arrived and demanded their own share of attention. This gave me some time to assimilate Betta's unexpected reaction. When the two Dobies had enough and retreated to their baskets, I took Betta's hand and guided her to the kitchen where I got myself a glass of water. Twice, I had to stop her from starting to speak but did so with a calm voice and smiling. When I was ready, I turned to her.

"Yes, I have been showing some really unhealthy behaviour. Yes, the explosion today proves that I need help and yes, I fully agree that I need to see a psychologist."

The hug seemed to become her standard reply and I definitely wasn't complaining about that.

+

For the next couple of weeks, we very carefully avoided the topic we both knew needed to be discussed. It didn't take long for me to get an appointment with a therapist. After all, I had her number still saved in my phone from Ben's party.

Progress was slow. It took two months before I was ready to talk to Betta about my sessions with Kerry and another two months before I was ready to talk about my experiences. Then, half a year after the disastrous dinner when I had snapped, I invited Betta on a date. This one went much better. Not that that was very difficult. Running out in the middle of the main course was about as far from a good date as you could get. This time, we had chosen a restaurant within easy walking distance of my house and it was on the way home that Betta started to not so subtly push us towards the next level.

"I want to take you to bed, but I'm not sure if you're ready for it. Do you need more time?"

I had known that this step was looming in our near future but had been hesitant to address the topic.

"Let me see. Five minutes walking, greeting the dogs, going for a quick walk with them, showering... Maybe half an hour? Or is that too soon?"

"It's rather not soon enough," she replied, gripping my arm a little tighter.

We arrived home and received the typical boisterous welcoming by Blaze and Xena. Soon we had them on the leash and took them on our standard evening tour around the neighbourhood. We took the opportunity to discuss some other personal issues.

"George, are you clean? When were you last tested?"

"As Lara had been cheating on me, I got myself tested shortly after I arrived here and as I haven't been with anyone since..." I didn't end the sentence, but let the obvious conclusion hang in the air.

"Great. I haven't been with anyone since Adrian and had my gyn test me when I was last there."

The reason for this discussion was obvious. We were about to go to bed together and wanted to be sure that we didn't need condoms. Pregnancy obviously was no worry for us. She was infertile and, even though she didn't know that, I had had a vasectomy years ago.

"Wait! Are you telling me you haven't had sex in more than ten years? It's been a year for me and I'm almost exploding!"

"I've been taking long showers whenever necessary," I said without going into details. I assumed that she'd understand.

"But ten years?"

"It just wasn't very important to me after all the disappointments I had experienced."

It wasn't easy to get laid when the school's over-jock made sure from your first day in school that you were seen as the scum of the earth and anyone seen in my vicinity would receive the same abuse as I did. That made me a loner from the beginning. It also deprived me of opportunities to develop my social skills. Nobody would play with me in the recess. Whenever I tried to join a game, I was rejected. When teams were selected in PE, I was always the last one picked. All through my teenage years, I didn't have a single close friend and of course, I hadn't been on a date, either.

It hadn't been until I started at university and had been out of my brother's range of influence that I had made my first few friends and lost my virginity. But even then, it had turned out that the girl's sorority had a bet going who could get the most socially awkward guy in bed. The girl that bedded me easily took first place. At least the video she had recorded that night had shown a somewhat capable lover but that abasement had still put another huge damper on my dating activity as I had no intention of repeating the degrading experience. It hadn't been until Lara and I were teamed up on a group project in the beginning of my Master's course that I actually had my first girlfriend ever and that obviously hadn't turned out very well, either.

"Well, I'll just have to make sure that you get some new, satisfactory experiences," she purred with a playful voice.

"I'm not some kind of social experiment, Betta!"

I wasn't totally sure why I suddenly reacted so aggressively to what was clearly intended as verbal foreplay. For some reason, Betta just laughed.

"Forget it, Mister. I will not let you pull back into your shell. That's not what I meant and you're far too intelligent to not know that. For half a year now, I've been telling people that you're my boyfriend and tonight we will make love. I'm literally just a hair's breadth away from tying you to your bed and then shower you with love until you start praying to every god any human has ever prayed to."

I had stopped walking halfway through her little speech.

"Boyfriend?"

"Yes, stupid. Since way before that first date, I've been in love with you, but as I know now, you were far too caught up in the situation with your family to see that."

"Love?"

"Yes, love."

She took my hand and pulled me forward.

"As much as I'd like to ravish you here and now, I want our first time to be in bed. I want to remember the love we'll be sharing and not how hard the floor was."

Cracks and Fissures

There was no question about us being a couple after that night and for the next few months, everything was in perfect order. At Christmas, I met her parents for the first time in person. They had been celebrating her father's retirement by going on an extended two-year world cruise and had only been in contact by email and the occasional video call. They had long ago learned about Betta's diagnosis and the subsequent break-up with Adrian. They also knew that she had moved in with 'a friend' but not yet about the recent change in our relationship.

I avoided replying to the questions about my own family as I didn't want to lie to them and was sure that they wouldn't understand my point of view. As we had more than enough room, they stayed with us for a couple of days before moving on to celebrate the New Year with friends.

Over the next two months, our relationship grew even more. For the first time since that fateful day more than twelve years ago, I felt as if I could love somebody. That feeling was severely tested in late March though when Betta addressed the topic of my family again.

"George, I know you don't want to talk about it, but I really feel we need to discuss your family if our relationship is to progress."

"My family hasn't got anything to do with us."

She didn't speak for a minute and I was hoping against reason that she would let it rest.

"Your family is an integral part of you. I'm sure they miss you and would love to hear from you."

"I have no doubt at all that they care about me as little as I care about them."

That really was my conviction. It's not as if I had submerged and changed my name or something. Type my name into a search engine and you'll get lots of hits. Even if I had blocked their usual phone numbers, there were still plenty of possibilities to get a message to me if they wanted - emails from temporary accounts, letters, other peoples' phones, and many others - but there had been nothing. I could only conclude that they didn't want to see me any more than vice versa. I added these thoughts to my last statement.

"You didn't exactly encourage them to contact you last time you spoke, did you? Maybe they are just waiting for you to take the first step?"

I wasn't convinced of what I said next and as a matter of fact, it was mostly sarcastic.

"You know what? Go ahead. Call them. Write them. Do whatever you want. Just leave me out of it."

That discussion kind of drove a wedge between us. I didn't appreciate her pressing me on that matter and she didn't understand how I could hold a grudge on my family for so long. The incident that had so thoroughly separated me from my parents and my brother was more than twelve years past. What she didn't understand despite my best efforts to explain it to her was that for me this had only been the last straw. The treatment as a tolerated but not actually wanted member of the family had been going on for as long as I could remember. The main reason why I hadn't missed such simple things like being hugged was that I never knew the feeling in the first place. I dimly remembered one time my mother had wrapped me in my arms after I had fallen off my rusty old bike, but that was about it.

For the next few days, I didn't feel like being intimate with Betta. I knew that this made her feel bad, but I was also hurt. As it turned out, it didn't stop her from contacting my parents either. It was during a dinner that Betta addressed my family again.

"They would like us to visit them."

I knew immediately who she was talking about. Our previously easy-going relationship had been heavily strained as I refused to talk about something she wanted to discuss.

"Did they in any way apologise for what they did?"

"They said how sorry they were that you felt you had to leave because of it and how badly life has treated them since."

I saw in her face that she knew as much as I did that this was not an apology. I held it in her favour that she didn't lie to me. I also saw that she was in doubt whether or not she was doing the right thing.

"Maybe if there's a lull in business. I'm too busy to take off right now."

"I wondered whether we could plan something for the Easter holiday. Drive there on Friday and come back on Monday. That would give you some time to catch up, but we could also get out of there on short notice if you need to."

That would give me about five days to get used to the thought of seeing my parents and possibly my brother again.

"Why don't you go there alone? You wanted to meet them."

"Please. Don't be like that. You know how important my parents are to me. It hurts me deep inside to see you so detached from yours."

I sighed. I didn't want to do that. The only question I had to ask myself was whether or not Betta was worth waking the demons. Despite the love I felt for her, I wasn't sure about that. In the end, I reluctantly agreed.

"We're not staying at their place. We drive there on Friday, stay at a hotel for a night, visit on Saturday morning and return home in the afternoon."

"Why don't we plan for two nights? Just in case? I'm paying! We can always cancel the second night if you really don't want to stay there."

"Whatever. Just stop bothering me with it."

She tried to hug me but I refused her. I really didn't feel very amicable towards her right then. The crack between us was widening. Mostly this happened because I pulled away from her. I felt like she had tricked me, even though my brain told me that wasn't true. She had always played with open cards. But somewhere inside me, I feared that I would lose her over this and I tried to prepare myself. Somehow, I just knew that my parents would pull her over to their side. Betta was a family person. That was one of the reasons her infertility hit her so hard. Blaze and Xena quickly picked up on the troubles. They also seemed to understand that the problem was mostly me because they stayed close to me almost permanently.

Betta's attempts to bridge the growing gap without having to cancel the plans were fruitless. I knew I was treating her badly, but I felt it was her own fault. The closer the Easter holiday came, the more convinced I became that Betta wouldn't be my girlfriend anymore afterwards.

I also kept rejecting her sexual advances. I thought it wrong to be intimate with her if I wasn't sure of our relationship. She became quite obvious about it but I kept denying her. We also spoke less and less with each other and that also was my fault. I had trusted her with personal information and while she hadn't shared it with anyone, she had used it against me.

More than once, I heard her crying when we were in different rooms of the house and, despite everything, that hurt me. I didn't want to be the reason for her being sad, but as I was very unsure whether our relationship would survive that visit to my parents, I thought it better if she got used to the idea.